Joey glanced across the car. Charlie had been quiet for the past couple of hours now and one look at her pained face, told Joey why.
"You're still not upset about those idiots in the car, are you?" she said.
"They're dead."
"Better them than us," said Joey, then she sighed in understanding. "Look Charlie, even had we wanted to, we wouldn't have been able to save them," she said.
"So you've said."
"Do you honestly believe you'd have had the strength and skill to swim against that current, free those men from the car and then help them out of the water?"
"No, but we should have at least tried."
"And possibly died in trying," said Joey. "I get that you feel you've failed in your police officer duties, but you need to look at the realities of the situation back there and the big picture overall."
"I know," Charlie muttered. "It just doesn't sit well with me and never will."
"Well, you're going to have to find a way to deal with it Charlie, because chances are, that might not be the only time we find ourselves in a situation where it's us or them," Joey pointed out. "And if it does happen again, do you intend to do nothing or will you defend yourself?"
"That's a little different to what happened back there," Charlie replied.
"Perhaps, but the end result is the same," she said. "It's about us surviving, Charlie and I don't know about you, but I like living and I intend on doing whatever is necessary to keep it like that."
"What exactly do you mean by that?"
"It means that I am not going to let a bunch of killers or corrupt cops get their wish in seeing me dead," Joey emphatically stated. Charlie had to admire the other woman's determination, yet there was a part of her that was worried just exactly how far Joey was willing to go. One thing was certain though and that was that she was going to have her beliefs and principles further tested during their fight for survival. Charlie just hoped she was up for it.
"The Drugs Squad are sniffing around our business, but there's nothing to trace those drugs to us other than Mick and Jarrod used to work here," Heath's voice said over Watson's phone.
"Used to?"
"Yeah, turns out we fired them a month ago and our paperwork and payments will show just that."
Watson smiled. It never ceased to amaze her that Brax always had contingency plans in place for when things went wrong. Except for the matter of a certain witness and cop. Those two women were proving more dangerous than any task force sent to bring them down, so finding those two bitches was now more important than ever.
"What's the rest of the cop situation like?" Watson asked him. "Word is all over the radio about the drugs discovery, but I haven't heard a peep on anything else."
"We haven't heard anything from the inside either, so your cover is still in place," he said. "For the moment," he added ominously.
Watson was well aware that if her cover was blown, then she wouldn't be much use to the Braxtons. Not only that, she'd likely have to go on the run to avoid jail and she didn't want that. She had no intention of walking away from the life she'd worked damn hard to have.
"Don't screw this up, Watson," he warned her. "Mick has already cost Brax a fortune in lost drugs, not to mention he's had to placate our dealers and buyers, who aren't happy they've got nothing to sell until Brax can resupply them and so you do not want to fail again."
"I won't," she assured him. She was going to find those women if it was the last thing she did.
Charlie lent against the side of the car as she nibbled on her Chiko roll. She was barely tasting it as it went down, her mind too preoccupied with other things to really care about what she was eating. Was she up to this? This wasn't exactly in her job description. She was the cop, the one in charge of protecting others, yet somewhere along the way, it felt as if she'd been reduced to the role of sidekick with the way Joey was making all the decisions. Did she care? That was part of the problem. It didn't matter that Joey had the gun, therefore the balance of power, because the truth was, she was allowing Joey to make the decisions and while she'd mulled over her options in over powering Joey, she'd always found a reason not to. She hated this, yet in a strange way, it was a relief not having to make the difficult decisions for a change. It also gave her time to think of her other options. If only that time had afforded her with the right options, because right at this moment, her best option appeared to be to keep doing what she already had been doing, which was nothing. Charlie snorted. That was how bad her current situation was. That she was just going along with a woman she didn't trust one bit. A woman she was increasingly becoming aware was not the person she'd first appeared to be. A woman who lied as if she'd done it often. A woman who handled a speeding car like a pro. A woman who carried a gun like she knew how to use it. A woman who was smiling at her right now as if she knew exactly what Charlie was thinking. God, what a fucked up situation this was, she thought as she raised her Chiko toward Joey in a mock salute. Joey just grinned at her further and Charlie felt a little flutter, which she quickly dismissed. The woman was attractive, there was no denying that, but after her stupidity with Watson in letting her guard down, there was no way in hell that she was going to succumb to her hormones again, no matter how much they teased her.
The empty bottle flew through the air and smashed against the road sign.
"Calm down, Tegan," Hayley said.
"Do you know how much Brax just lost?" she said. "Not to mention Mick and Jarrod are dead. Granted, I'm not going to miss either dickhead, neither is Brax, but their deaths and the drugs are going to mean the cops are going to be sticking their noses in where none of us want it."
"Then it's a good thing we're out here, while the cops are back there wasting their time with Brax," said Hayley.
"And we're not wasting our time out here?" Tegan said. "Let's face it Hails, we could be driving around forever and still not find those bitches."
"We're going to find them," Hayley asserted. "And when we do, I'm going to watch you gut them for the pigs they are, before we fuck like we've never fucked before."
Tegan grinned. "You're my kind of girl."
Charlie stared with displeasure at the bed in their newly rented hotel room.
"A double?" she muttered unhappily.
"We're posing as girlfriends, so it would have been a bit odd to then ask for two single beds."
"Why are we even posing as girlfriends?"
"Less questions as to why two women would be travelling and staying in the same hotel rooms together."
It made a morbid kind of sense, but Charlie didn't like it one bit.
"You can have bed, I'll take the chair," Joey told her as she began to unpack.
"Aren't you forgetting my jewellery for the night?" Charlie said, holding her hands out toward her.
"No cuffs," said Joey. "If you want to go, you can go, but don't expect me to stick around the moment you're out that door."
Charlie stood in stunned surprise. This was the last thing she'd expected. "What, so you're just letting me walk out that door?"
"If that's what you want, then you can go, I won't stop you."
"Why?" she asked in confusion.
"Because I'm not your captor Charlie and if you're only going to resist me at every stage, then I'm better off doing this on my own."
"So I can just walk out that door, contact the police and you won't stop me?"
"Nope, you can do as you please," she said. "Just bear in mind the danger you're putting yourself in if you do," Joey warned her. "Even the local coppers we pass along the way we can't rely on. I mean, chances are, their first act will be to contact someone in the city and if the wrong copper is on the other end of that call, then you've not only told them where to find us, their associates will have been allowed to get closer in the mean time."
"There has to be someone I can trust."
"Isn't it better to work that out first, because if you misjudge your next move in any way, you might not get a second chance," Joey told her. "Charlie, I'm not going to stop you from making your own decision, but I honestly think it would be best for us to stick together, at least until we can work out a way around this," she said. "But if we are to do this together, we both have to be committed to this, because I don't want to be arguing with you every step of the way."
Charlie frowned at what that potentially meant.
"So, what, we're actually going to have to start trusting each other?"
"My trust in anyone is almost nonexistent after the last few days, but I'm a realist and I seriously believe there is safety in numbers," Joey said. "Besides, we're both in the same dangerous situation and if we can't trust and rely on each other to get out of it, what hope do we have?"
"Ok, let's say I agree to this," Charlie said. "I'd need some assurances."
"Such as?"
"You won't just dismiss any advice I give."
"I'll take on board and consider anything you have to say, as long as it's not about turning ourselves in."
It was a start, thought Charlie.
"Also, the gun," she said. "I don't like you having it."
"Too bad, because I'm keeping it."
"Then at least promise me you won't draw it on me or anyone else."
"That's a little harder to promise," said Joey. "If we're in this together, then I don't see why I'd need to raise it against you anyway, but those people after us, well, if we're in danger, I might have no other choice, except to use it on them."
"I can live with that, if it's purely used for self-defence."
Joey did her best not to roll her eyes at Charlie's insistence on playing by certain rules that she knew no one else would be playing by. "Anything else?"
"I have some questions I'd like you to answer, but I'm not sure now is the right time to ask them." Not when they were trying to find a way to trust each other, which Charlie wasn't sure was even possible as long as so much remained unknown about this woman. On the other hand, Joey had made the first move in trusting her by leaving off the cuffs at night. Joey was also likely right in that they stood more chance together, than alone, so perhaps she could trust her in so far as they both wanted the same thing. To find a way through this. That didn't mean she had to completely trust her, just enough to achieve their goal. Could she do that? The alternative was walking through that door and trusting in her fellow colleagues, even after one of them had tried to kill her and another had likely set her up. It was the hardest choice she'd ever had to make.
"So what's your decision?" said Joey. "We go it alone or together?"
"Fine, we stick together, at least until I can figure out what I'm going to do," Charlie said.
"You can leave at any time, Charlie, but if you do, just give me the courtesy of letting me know beforehand, because I have no intention of sticking around as long as there are people trying to kill me." She held out her hand to Charlie. "Deal?"
This was likely the dumbest decision she'd ever made, yet Charlie put her hand in Joey's and shook it. "Deal."
"Now that that's out of the way, I get first dibs on the shower."
Charlie had a feeling Joey was testing their newly aligned agreement by leaving her alone with the phone and car keys, and Charlie wondered if she'd still be able to honour that agreement the moment the bathroom door closed between them. She was about to find out.
